Hunting

Public land rifle carry is mostly a noise problem. On pressured ground the animals have already heard every clumsy hunter of the season, and the metallic tick of hardware against a receiver carries further through cold still timber than any footfall you make. The second problem is other people. You are never alone on public […]

Cold weather rifle carry fails for one boring reason: the setup you dialled in wearing a shirt in October has to go over four layers in January, and the sling did not get any longer. Everything downstream of that follows, from hardware you cannot reach to an adjuster you cannot run in gloves. Fix it

The gifts for hunters that actually get used are usually boring: consumables they burn through, quality basics that wear out, and gear that solves a problem they already have. Gadgets get opened, admired, and put in a drawer by February. The easiest way to buy well is to stop sorting by budget and start sorting

Hands free glassing means using the rifle sling to take the weight of the gun so both hands stay on the binoculars, and using the sling or a bino harness as a brace so the image stops shaking. Handheld glass wobbles with your pulse and your breathing, and a shaking image hides the exact things

The useful way to build a hunting gear checklist is by system, not as one long alphabetical dump. Everything you take belongs to one of four layers: what goes on your body, what carries the rifle, what lives in the pack, and what stays in the truck. Sort your deer hunting gear list that way

A deer season prep checklist works best backwards. Fix opening day on the calendar, then count back and give each job the runway it actually needs, because scouting, a stand inspection and a confirmed zero cannot all happen in the same weekend. This list is organised by time remaining rather than by category, which is

Rio Grande turkey hunting is different from Eastern turkey hunting mainly because the bird lives a different life. A Rio needs tall roost trees and water in country that offers very little of either, so it concentrates where those exist, travels further between roosting and feeding than an Eastern typically does, and spends much of

Turkey hunting in Texas is defined by two things that have nothing to do with the birds: how land is held, and how big it is. Most huntable ground in the state is private and leased rather than public, so access is a planning problem you solve months ahead. And the country is open and

Turkey hunting with a bow asks you to draw a weapon inside a few dozen yards of an animal that reacts to movement faster than almost anything else you hunt. That one problem drives every other decision you make: where you sit, whether you use a blind, how you place decoys, and which broadhead category

The best sling for a bolt action rifle is one that matches the interface your stock already has, which on most bolt-action hunting rifles means a pair of sling studs, front and rear. Everything else follows from that: the swivel has to fit the stud, the webbing has to suit the weight of the rifle,

There are four carries worth knowing: American carry with the muzzle up on your strong shoulder, African carry with the muzzle down, a two-point across the back, and a cradle or trail carry with no sling at all. Each one points the muzzle somewhere different, and each one costs you a different amount of time

The short answer on a pack-out: run the sling under the pack’s shoulder straps and short enough that the rifle cannot swing, or use the pack’s own rifle carrier and accept that it is slower to get into. A sling worn over the top of a pack strap is quicker to grab but slides, loads